


The Heartbeat of Aperture

by AlexandrianSight



Series: the devil's got nothing on me [2]
Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, character exploration for caroline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 10:29:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8158931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexandrianSight/pseuds/AlexandrianSight
Summary: "The truth was that she had few more morals than her boss, if any." 
Caroline has learned a lot at Aperture Science Innovators.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A short fic that's more of a character analysis than anything else.

She was never a particularly moral person.

Due to the fact that Mr. Johnson was an unmarried man, and she an unmarried woman, people often assumed the two were romantically involved. The fact that it wasn’t true didn’t prevent the rumors from flying. It didn’t really matter, though. Neither of them cared.

It was a bit peculiar, though, when people would talk to them like they were a married couple.

“I bet you keep him in line,” One person had said.

Caroline had to do her best not to scoff in the man’s face. For one, there was no keeping Mr. Johnson ‘in line.’ The man was less of a man and more of a force of nature. He did what he wanted and said what he liked, usually leaving a mess behind. Whenever he got into one of his excited tirades, Caroline could, at best, redirect his path to something more productive.

For another, she really had no interest in keeping him ‘in line.’ Usually, her boss’s ideas and ramblings resulted in new experiments and tests for the company to perform. Most of which were...interesting, to say the least.

It was a recurring opinion that people tended to have, though. People acted as though she was supposed to be Mr. Johnson’s moral compass, and it was annoying. She knew it was because she was a woman, and women were supposed to be more ‘morally sound’ than men.

There were times where she’d accompany Mr. Johnson to the labs to announce the new tests they were to start working on. Whenever he’d list off a project that was questionable, the scientists would, whether knowingly or not, glance over at her as though they expected a reaction. Surprise. Anger. Something other than the small smile that she always wore.

The truth was that she had few more morals than her boss, if any.

When she was young, she was _that_ kid. The one that would fry ants on the sidewalk using a magnifying glass. When her parents yelled at her, she stole an egg from the fridge and tried to fry it in the same way on a hot summer’s day.

Her thirst for knowledge often prevented her conscience from interfering with what she did. Still, she had to admit that she was quite a bit more ‘innocent’ before her job at Aperture. She’d never once thought about the effects of replacing a man’s blood with gasoline, or how praying mantis DNA would reconfigure someone’s physical structure. Her interest in science before Aperture had been purely knowledge-based. How much she could learn of what other people had discovered. She’d never considered that one day she herself would do the discovering. Or that the discoveries would be so...odd.

“We’ve accidentally created an army of mantis men” were not words that she’d ever expected to hear, but she had to admit that it was exciting.

Morals never got in her way when approving and filing paperwork for unethical tests. Morals never got in her way when assigning test subjects to their jobs.

Morals never got in her way when she made testing mandatory for a section of employees. Or when she made sure that of those employees, her attacker was assigned to a highly dangerous test.

She learned and matured a lot in just her first month working at Aperture. She learned how to assign the best possible test subjects to each test. She learned how to avoid being left alone with any of her co-workers. She learned how to detach her emotions.

 

* * *

 

When they started hiring female test subjects, Caroline made sure to keep special tabs on them so that none of them were hurt like she was, or worse. Remembering it made her hands shake, and sometimes she had to take deep breaths to calm down.

Sometimes she had to stay and work late into the night. Mr. Johnson was always there, too, working in his own office. One night, she accidentally fell asleep slouched onto her desk. When Mr. Johnson tried shaking her shoulder to wake her up and send her home, she’d grabbed his wrist and nearly snapped it on the desk before she realized what was going on.

She quickly let go of his wrist and apologized profusely as she buried her face in her shaking hands. Her boss just silently massaged his wrist for a few moments before telling her that she should probably go home.

“And Caroline,” He said, causing her to stop in the doorway.

“Yes, sir?”

“You know you’re safe now, right?” He asked. “That he can’t hurt you again?”

Caroline looked away for a moment, and when she looked back up she looked like she’d aged five years in that moment. “He can’t. But others can.” She quickly turned and left before her boss could say anything else.

They didn’t speak about it again.

 

* * *

 

 

A year passed and the clicking of her heels through the offices was described as “the heartbeat of Aperture.” She roamed around just as much as her boss did and was always prepared to file reports on employees.

If you heard Caroline’s heels click by, you knew to straighten up immediately, because you’d heard a rumor that she was responsible for the death of one of your colleagues. You knew that behind that sweet smile was someone who would not hesitate to fire you. Gone were the days when the lab boys thought that she was just Cave Johnson’s pretty decoration.

She was the backbone of this facility.

Cave Johnson had said it himself in one of his voice recordings that everyone heard nearly every day. Another rumor had gone around saying that the voice recordings were actually her idea. That she’d told Cave Johnson that he was wearing himself thin trying to supervise as many tests as possible. That rumor, like the others, was never proven true.

Gone were the days when Caroline was at the top of her class and could skate by with what she knew. She had to keep learning in order to stay above water. She already knew how to smile and look pretty. How to sweet-talk men into doing what she wanted. How to put her conscience aside for the sake of furthering science. She knew how to walk with her head held high in a hostile environment. Now, though, she was learning something new every day at Aperture. She learned about science. She learned about men. She learned about her boss.

She learned about herself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the read! This was originally part of a longer fic that I should be posting within the next few days, but I realized that the subject matter is pretty different, so I split it into two.
> 
> Comments are love!
> 
> Become a [ beta ](mailto:%20schneeprinzessin24@gmail.com)


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